Lazy Quilt Reporter

"Mrs. M.L. Simpson, of Phillipsburg [Kansas], has recently completed a quilt with 3,711 pieces. It is claimed so far as known this beats all other records. She was about four months making it and every part of it was by hand. She is now piecing the second one."

"Mrs. T. A. Harris, of Cooke county, recently completed a quilt which has 13,050 pieces in it. It required seventy-five days to do the work and fifteen spools of thread were used."

Mrs. Harris did not claim to hold a record for pieces. She was perhaps just looking for a little recognition for her persistence. (Or maybe an excuse as to why she couldn't have folks over to dinner lately.)




The Essex County, Vermont Herald noted in 1892 that:

 "Betsey Fuller, aged 83 years, has recently completed a quilt containing 13,320 different pieces."

Here we have a persistent and industrious woman pulling the "old lady card" to get her name in the paper.
Or maybe it was her children sending a 19th-century press release to the editor. 13,000 pieces is a lot of pieces.

You might realize that my snippiness about lazy reporters comes from a 2015 persepective when I can go to the Library of Congress's newspaper website and search for the words "recently completed a quilt." In a half hour I came up with 16 references to quilting feats.


The only reason I bring up the whole thing is to entertain you readers, and show a lot of pictures of quilts with a lot of pieces.


Talk about your lazy reporter.

See the Library of Congress's newspaper files here:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/